


I Seek Not Your Loyalty

by TheColorBlue



Series: Life in Present Tense [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Recovery, graysexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 11,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1579121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Project Insight's collapse, the Asset gravitates towards the general vicinity of a certain Captain America, and tries to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Asset was only intended for use a few hours, at most, in the field at any given time. The Asset was designed to be utilized as a weapon, to be pointed at a target when the field had been properly prepared, all relevant intelligence had been gathered, and the appropriate operatives had been placed to facilitate the most efficient completion of the stated objective. Once the fences were in place, the Asset was released like a dog to hunt and kill. The Asset was trained like a dog, and muzzled like a dog, and beaten like a dog if his performance was inadequate. 

Here were the complications inherent in utilizing the Asset, and these were known from the beginning: the Asset was being conditioned to operate under non-real world conditions. With a metal arm and the fighting style and with the laboratory having had, _ideally_ , stripped the Asset of any impulses to behave or socialize like a normal human being—the ideal conditions for this weapon would have been in a battle-field, in a location of overt warfare. 

The Asset was an experiment in weaponizing a human being. 

In other circumstances, an _assassin_ may have been expected to have a sophisticated understanding of contemporary society and human psychology, and also the art of disappearing in a crowd. How often was an individual really going to be able to wander around a city without encountering other human beings; and an operative simply could not be allowed to kill everyone who happened across their line of sight, unless the goal was to attract unwanted attention. 

The Asset was not an assassin. 

The Asset was not a Natasha Romanov. 

The Asset was a weapon.

During the earliest experimental assignments, the Asset was given strict orders to not be seen by anyone when fulfilling a mission. 

At this stage in conditioning and training, the Asset made mistakes. 

The Asset was seen: perhaps by an unlucky housekeeper; perhaps by a homeless man on the street. 

The Asset was not asked to kill these civilians. Too messy, after all. The Asset was not being trained in the art of making murders look like accidents. The Asset was being groomed to be a _ghost_ that made a lasting impression on those who would oppose Hydra’s ideals. The Asset’s kills were intended to look like assassinations, to send a clear and grim message.

So. 

That unlucky housekeeper, that unfortunate homeless man—they were cleaned up by other Hydra operatives. 

And the Asset was, of course, punished. 

The Asset was punished in such a way that his body knew, and would always know, the pain of failing a mission objective.

\- -

Further criteria concerning the Asset: 

The Asset did not eat, or drink, or consume any substance of any kind except those specifically given to him by his handlers.

The Asset did not sleep until his mission objectives were completed. 

The Asset was not to be concerned with the care and protection of his own body except in keeping with Hydra’s best interests. 

\- -

In 1949, the United States of America passed the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act which classified military working dogs as “equipment to be discarded when worn out.”

When the Asset had been known as James “Bucky” Barnes, during the Second World War, and as a member of the Howling Commandos, he had sat in a bar and drank with his compatriot, Steve Rogers, and made a joke about “being relegated to side-kick status, a regular Rin Tin Tin.” 

The Asset was not, in literal terms, a dog of a military. 

The Asset was less than a dog. 

The Asset was a piece of weaponry, and weapons did not accept offers of drink or food from senior Hydra operatives. And weapons did recognize mission targets as anything other than mission targets. And weapons did not cower and whimper when struck by their handlers, and when the blows came raining down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding [Rin Tin Tin](http://magickedteacup.tumblr.com/post/84736510564/alwaysalreadyangry-i-knew-bucky-wouldnt-like).  
> Regarding the use of dogs in the American military circa WWII : "This American Life Ep. 480: Act One Semper Fido" - [Transcript](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/480/transcript).


	2. Chapter 2

The longer the Winter Soldier remained out of the labs, and particularly out of cryogenic sleep, the more "unstable" be became. Hence, the the short time allotments set on how long he could remain in the field. Hence also, the operatives who were sent into the field with him, monitoring on the peripheries. 

After completing a mission: the longer he stayed out of the labs, the stronger his impulse for flight became. It itched at him like an animal instinct, until he was lashing out at any unfamiliar face that approached him. 

Like an animal, he fought to survive without knowing _why_. 

\- -

After the collapse of Project Insight, the Winter Soldier did not seek out any of the remaining Hydra operatives. He did not go back to the labs and the cryogenic tank--although on that matter, those facilities had also already been compromised and were being investigated by outside government agencies.

On the night of his first day of “freedom,” the Winter Soldier broke into a convenience store, disarmed the rudimentary security cameras in place, and then stole bottled water and ten packages of pre-made sandwiches. That is, he stood there in the store aisle in front of the fridgerator, and tore open the plastic wrapping of one, two, then three sandwiches, eating them so fast that at first he was nearly in danger of choking. 

Again, it was like an animalistic drive. There was only food, water, exhaustion, and pain. He had failed his mission. Hydra’s operations had fallen apart, at least in regards to SHIELD, and Alexander Pierce was dead. The impulse for flight, for running away, continued to claw at him He was afraid, in a tense, tight way. So many had seemed to assume that that the Winter Soldier felt no fear, but there was always fear. There was fear when they showed him the rubber mouthpiece that would prevent him from biting out his own tongue. There was fear even as he accepted the inevitable memory wipe, and felt the apparatus of the chair clamp down on his wrists and to his temples. There was fear as he screamed. 

Always, he bit down on the fear until it numbed, like physical pain. 

At this point, however, fear was slightly edged out by other bodily needs. The sandwiches finished, the Winter Soldier gulped down water greedily, and water was sloshing down his chin and into his lungs until he coughed it back up again. 

The Winter Soldier took the rest of the water and sandwiches and climbed up to tall places where people did not go, up to an apartment rooftop, and he curled up on concrete in the dark and under the city lights, and when he finally slept, fitfully, he dreamed. 

He would nearly wish for the cryogenic sleep, then. At least in the tank, he had not dreamed. 

\- - 

The Winter Soldier had never been built to survive life outside of the Hydra laboratories. He had killed whoever he was pointed at, but his handlers had also made every attempt to erase his basic survival and self-care knowledge and drives. Besides which, he had never been taught how to function in an ever-changing contemporary society. The Winter Soldier had never handled credit cards or used public transit or learned how to blend in with ordinary civilians. 

Bucky Barnes, on the other hand, had been a survivor.

He had grown up in Depression-era Brooklyn. He had been confident and charming, because no one ever questioned a person who had enough confidence. Bucky Barnes had always figured out the way to survive. 

The Winter Soldier broke into an apartment and stole civilian clothes. 

He stole money, too: recognizable paper bills and recognizable coinage. 

He went to the Smithsonian.

He stared at the display for “Bucky Barnes,” and still he did not know who that man was. 

\- -

The Winter Soldier then broke into the new apartment of Steve Rogers. 

Rogers had salvaged what he could from his old location, and then moved. While Rogers was out with Natasha Romanov and Sam Wilson, attempting to collect intel on, ironically, the Winter Soldier himself—the Winter Solder broke into and surveyed Rogers’ apartment. It was more than a sweep for apartment layout, security and surveillance (Romanov herself had swept the apartment for bugs; the apartment was clean). With no new mission, and the ever-present weight and agitation of his own mind—the Winter Soldier was trying to find something to hold onto. 

He went through all of Steve’s belongings: books and records and files and artwork. 

He went through all of it, and then placed them back exactly as he found them. 

He crouched by the wall afterwards, wary and exhausted and hungry. Without Hydra’s specific nutritional compounds that he had once been fed—somehow, he was always hungry. He was always hungry, and he was always afraid, and he was always in pain. He curled up, feeling his heart race. 

He wanted, so badly, for something to hold onto. 

As things stood, he did not even have any real reason to live—was only whipped on by the most basic instincts to stave off starvation and dehydration, whining like a dog that had been beaten.

Who was Bucky Barnes. 

Who _the fuck_ was Bucky Barnes.


	3. Chapter 3

The Winter Soldier was beginning to smell, quite badly. 

He used Rogers’ shower. 

He used Rogers’ bath towel. 

He stole a set of Rogers’ clothes, and rolled up the already used clothes into a ball, to dump them out later. 

He stared at himself in the mirror, at the stranger looking back, and then used Roger’s razor to shave. 

When Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers had been living together in Brooklyn, they had shared the same razor, taking turns over the bathroom sink. They had shared everything. 

When the Winter Soldier was done, he wiped down the tub, the sink, the bathroom tiles. He left everything as it was before.

He fell asleep on the floor of Rogers’ bedroom.

That is, he passed out from exhaustion and undernourishment. 

He woke up again with the sound of the front door opening, and then he slipped out the bedroom window. 

\- - 

The Winter Soldier had no where else to go. 

He had nothing.

He could have sat out on rooftops for hours, staring unseeing at the blue of the sky. He stole food and he stole water and he stuck to shadows like a hunted animal. 

He took books from libraries and shops and lay on his back while looking at pictures of Bucky Barnes, looking at pictures of a stranger. He read the biographies and thought: that man was not him.

That man was not him. 

\- -

The Winter Soldier circled Rogers’ apartment like a hound on a scent. 

He found surveillance cameras installed by Romanov, and very quietly disarmed them. 

He lay on the carpet, his cheek pressed to the soft fibers and thought: he did not want to remember. He wanted to forget. He wanted to disappear, the way the Winter Soldier was supposed to disappear. After every mission, he disappeared. He forgot. 

He must have lain like that, crumpled in on himself, for too long, for several hours, because that was how Rogers found him.

“Bucky—!” Rogers said from the door, and the Winter Soldier threw a knife at him. The knife went into the door frame just behind his shoulder, deliberately, but it had been enough to make Rogers pause—and the Winter Soldier had made it to the window overlooking the fire escape. He perched on the sill, looking back at Rogers. He had already produced another knife, holding it steady in one hand. 

Then he swung out onto the fire escape. 

\- - 

The Winter Soldier crouched on a rooftop, two buildings away from Rogers’ residence, eating oranges. 

Without quite knowing why, there seemed to be something nearly obscenely extravagant about eating oranges. 

He sucked the juice off his fingers, and rubbed the peel between his fingers, pressing it into a pulp against his skin. He sucked his fingers again, and the rind was bitter on his tongue. 

To remember felt like it would be reliving a kind of death all over again. 

But this: this was not living either. It was barely surviving. 

He opened a bag of pretzels and crammed a handful into his mouth. 

He felt both nauseous and starved. 

When night fell, he circled back to Rogers’ apartment, and sat on the fire escape, listening to the records that Rogers played. 

The music was in French. 

The Winter Soldier did not know why, but as he listened he opened his mouth and whispered the words. The music felt so faraway. Rogers could hear him, he almost knew it, but still he did not move, and Rogers did not come to the window.


	4. Chapter 4

In the morning, while Rogers went on his morning run with Samuel Wilson—or past Wilson, as it probably was—the Winter Soldier broke back into the apartment. As soon as he opened the fire escape window, he realized—the air of the apartment smelled… there was the smell of food. Something about the rich smell nearly made him want to drop back out again, but then he had swung his leg over the window sill and stepped inside. 

Rogers had made breakfast.

There was milk, and orange juice, and toast and bacon and an enormous omelette with cheese and spinach and tomato, and a piece of paper on the table that had “please help yourself” written in pencil. 

The Winter Soldier ate all of the food, indiscriminately. 

He even drank the milk, although something about the idea of it, of milk as a principle, made his chest wrench up weirdly. 

He cleaned up all the dishes when he was done, washing them in the sink and stacking them in the drying rack. 

When he was done, he realized: he was so tired he could barely stand. 

He hadn’t eaten like this in a very, very long time, and his body was reacting to the heavy meal. 

He went into Rogers’ bedroom and curled up in the corner of it. Some kind of underlying panic came and went, stringing up his chest and making him tighten up, before letting go again. 

He wanted to claw at the walls.

He wanted to put his fist through something. 

He wanted to curl up into himself and never wake up again. 

He turned his cheek to the wall and shut his eyes.

\- -

When he woke again, it was late morning. 

Rogers was in the kitchen, making turkey, bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. 

Big, strapping guy though he was, Rogers watched the Winter Soldier like he was both scared and fond and sad all at once. 

“Hey, Bucky, hope you slept okay.” 

The Winter Soldier stood in the door, not saying anything at first. He had a knife in one hand, out of habit. 

Then he clenched his hand around the hilt. 

“Don’t make me be _him_ ,” the Winter Soldier said roughly. “I’m not _that fucking guy_.” 

Rogers looked even more sad at that, but he said, “Okay. Okay, soldier.” 

Then Winter Soldier said, like the words were wrenched out of him, “You can call me Bucky, but I’m not him. I’m not the man you want me to be.” 

“That’s… that’s fine. It’s okay, Bucky.” 

Bucky began to circle around to the fire escape when Rogers, when _Steve_ , said quickly, “Look, you can stay if you want. You don’t have to, but if you want—”

Bucky dropped out onto the fire escape, and then curled up with his back to the bricks. He just… sat there, and looked out at the city. 

Twenty minutes later, Steve had left a plate of sandwiches at the window, and also a large bottle of water. 

Bucky didn’t move the entire afternoon, and Steve did not leave his apartment. 

He could hear Steve talking on the phone at some point, “...no Natasha, don’t provoke him, I think it’ll be...okay…”

And then later, “Sam. _Sam_. I already know I’m being an idiot, thanks for the tip. Just let me…figure this one out…”

Bucky pulled down the plate of sandwiches from the windowsill, and took a large bite out of the sandwich on top. 

Hunger, thirst, exhaustion, fear for survival… they had all been the perfect distractions. 

He ate the entire plate of sandwiches and then felt a little sick afterwards.

At some point he… he didn’t sleep, but he rested. 

The brick was rough and hard against his skin.

He felt exposed, sitting there out in the open, but still he did not move. 

Neither did Steve.


	5. Chapter 5

Even with a knife in his face, Steve managed to coax Bucky back inside in the evening.

Steve had made spaghetti, which Bucky declined. He drank a glass of orange juice, though, when Steve poured it out. 

Of course Steve also offered Bucky the bed, but all Bucky did was to go sit on the couch. 

He did not sleep for a long time. 

\- -

This was how the Winter Soldier had survived: he never looked back, and he never looked forward. 

Pain was a constant, and inevitable. 

There was never any point in anticipating it, except to brace for impact. 

Here were the things that he knew: concrete under his palm, metal against his fingers, the smell of dirt and sweat and blood and the taste of rubber in his mouth. 

Once, he had watched the sunset as he was waiting to be collected after a completed mission. 

He felt strange, looking at the sky.

And then he forgot it. 

\- -

The thing was: Bucky was not sure he wanted to be made to remember.

He’d read the biographies about James Buchanan Barnes. 

He didn’t… care. 

He didn’t care about the name of the street that Barnes had grown up on, or about what his favorite food had been, or the faces of the soldiers he’d fought with during the war, or any of that. And if the foundation of any loyalty for Steve Rogers, whether real or imagined, was based on things that had happened decades ago… he didn’t care about any of that. It meant nothing to him. It was… irrelevant. 

He was looking to know if he could live _then_ , in that moment, sitting on the coach that smelled of the soap and deodorant that Steve used, in the room that had furniture and records and vintage glass bottles collected by Steve. That still had the smell of garlic and spaghetti sauce in the air. 

He wanted something _to hang onto_. 

If Steve was someone worth being loyal to simply on account of things that had occurred in another lifetime… than maybe he wasn’t worth it at all. 

Bucky wasn’t thinking about another lifetime ago. 

He was thinking about only recently, on a damaged, failing helicarrier, and Steve offering his life to him. Steve falling into the water and refusing to swim. Steve just that afternoon, feeding him and looking after him. 

The Winter Soldier was not used to being cared for, only beaten and abused and treated worse than an animal. 

The Winter Soldier had gravitated towards Steve because he had no one else. He had nothing else. 

He wanted…

He did not know what he wanted.


	6. Chapter 6

Bucky got perhaps four hours of fitful sleep, and then he got up while it was still dark. He prowled around the apartment’s front room, and then he climbed out the window to do a perimeter check of the location.

He was only marginally satisfied by the security of the area, but there was nothing to be done. He climbed back in and then sat back on the couch. He was still sitting on the couch when Steve came out, dressed for his morning run. Steve switched on the light in the kitchen, and then peered out into the darkness where Bucky was staring back, unmoving. Steve’s eyesight was excellent, Bucky already knew. Despite this excellent eyesight, Steve was squinting at Bucky, and then he scratched his head a little, and then he said, “I’m making a breakfast smoothie—banana and strawberry flavored mostly, but there’s other stuff I’m throwing in too—do you want some?” 

Bucky said nothing. 

Bucky was having an eerie, almost awful feeling about sitting there, in the dark, being offered a drink, but like most of his awful feelings he squashed it down. There was nothing to be done about that kind of misery, only to sit still and unmoving.

He gently slipped his hand over the hilt of the knife in his pocket, and then, like a sudden flash of insight, he realized: he had two possible courses of action. 

He could accept Steve as a new point to which he centered loyalty: in which case, he would never again raise a hand against Steve, even if Steve raised his hand first. Even if that hand made contact. Even if Steve deliberately caused him pain. 

Or. He could regard Steve as being still a possible threat, and there was the knife in his hand. Also the handgun he kept concealed on his person. Also the metal of his fist. 

_do you want some, do you want a drink, do you want a glass of—_

Bucky didn’t realize that he was whining, deep in his throat, until Steve had knelt down in front of him, was putting two smoothie glasses on the coffee table. 

Steve didn’t touch him.

He said, “Bucky. Please, Bucky, stay with me.” 

Bucky stared at Steve, unseeing. 

Then he reached for the glass closest to him and drank the smoothie. He drank all of it down and did not put down the glass again until he was done. 

When he finally looked back at Steve, he saw that Steve’s expression was—he looked sick. He looked as though he might have been fighting back tears. 

Something tightened in Bucky’s chest. 

He licked dry, cracked lips and said, “Don’t cry, Steve.” 

He did not even know why he said it. 

But now Steve was wiping at his face with the back of his hand and saying roughly, “I’m sorry, Bucky. I’m sorry about everything. God, I’m so sorry.”

Neither of them moved for a long time.

The early morning sunlight began to peek through the windows. 

Bucky blinked, suddenly feeling uneasy again, but a different kind of uneasiness. He stood up and crossed the room and looked out at the dark profiles of the buildings, at the subtle morning glow of the sky. 

Steve was watching him.

He knew that Steve was watching him. 

If he left now: he could be free.

Forget questions of loyalty.

Forget glass of fruit and milk offered in the dark. 

Forget… everything. 

Bucky looked out the window, but he did not go out. 

He could not bring himself to, and he did not know why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding [milk](http://magickedteacup.tumblr.com/post/84984864819/fyeahwintersoldier-warrenworthingtonlll-the).


	7. Chapter 7

When Steve asked if Bucky would like to go with him on a jog around the National Mall, or at least go out to get some fresh air, Bucky went with him. He didn’t go jogging, though. He sat under a tree by the reflecting pool and watched Steve make lap after lap, and then he saw Sam come by later in the morning. 

When Sam noticed Bucky, he looked startled. Then he gave an acknowledging smile, but didn’t attempt coming nearer until Steve had come round again. 

Steve waved at Bucky. 

Bucky did not move from where he was sitting. 

He could hear Steve and Sam when they started talking.

“I don’t know if you have any suggestions for helping him?” Steve was asking, one hand scrubbed through his hair, that kind of sad look on his face. 

Sam said, “Steve. _Steve_. This is way over my head. Miles. Your friend Bucky over there—I’m pretty sure his situation would be considered unprecedented.” Sam looked over at Bucky in a way that Bucky was not used to strangers looking at him—it wasn’t fear on Sam’s face, or calculation, or any of those expressions—and Sam said, “On top of everything else, your man had his brain directly tampered with using—using who knows what they were using, I have no idea. Well, his brain and the whole rest of his body. You know, physiology. Reaction to medications. _What-have-you_. He’d probably need a team of specialists for comprehensive care. This isn’t exactly something you’d be able to make better with some psychotherapy, a few pills for anxiety, and a pat on the back.” 

They were both looking over at Bucky now at the same time.

Bucky could tell from their expressions that they were imagining him in a clinical setting. 

_Of course_ that wasn’t going to end well. 

“Who else knows you’re hiding Bucky at your place?”

“You. Nat. I haven’t told Nick, but you can probably imagine.”

“ _That guy_ ,” Sam said, with feeling. 

Natasha Romanov was monitoring the scene from some distance away from their group, her position obscured by a copse of trees. 

Bucky sat and waited. 

Sam and Steve came over to where Bucky was, and then Steve said, tentatively, “Bucky, this is my good friend, Sam Wilson.”

“It’s nice meeting you,” Sam said pleasantly. 

Bucky looked up at Sam, and then away. Sam was not a threat. Also, he did not want to be required to speak to Sam. 

After a long moment, Sam finally said, “So guess I’ll see you guys around. You take care of yourself too, okay Steve?” 

“I’ll try my best.”

Then Sam was jogging off. 

“What are we going to do,” Steve asked quietly, and Bucky knew that he was not expecting Bucky to answer. 

Then Steve looked down at Bucky, like both remembrance and regret, and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—Well, is there anything that you want to do right now, Bucky?” and Bucky knew that this was a different kind of question from the one before. 

Bucky wanted to be left alone. 

He didn’t want to have to worry about Steve, about the anxiousness on Steve’s face, and being required to do the things that would ease the anxiousness off of Steve’s face. 

“I want to go home by myself,” he said. 

“Oh,” Steve said. There was a strange note in Steve’s voice then. But all he said was, “Okay. I guess…that’s okay. I know you can… I’ll grab something for us to eat on the way home, if you’re feeling hungry when you get back. Take your time.” 

When Steve had left, Bucky finally realized what had set him off. 

He had used the word _home_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The animated short mentioned is "A Mouse Divided."

When Bucky got back to the apartment, it was evening.

Of course he went in through the window, instead of up the elevator and through the front door. 

The idea of being shut into an elevator with who knew who else, when he was perfectly capable of going through alternative routes… 

Bucky slipped into the apartment through the window, and found that Steve had set the kitchen table for dinner. 

There was some kind of pot roast, and vegetables, and salad, and fresh bread. 

Steve himself was sitting on his couch, watching something on his laptop. He was watching cartoons. 

Bucky looked at Steve for a moment, before sitting down next to him, though careful not to bump the other man. 

“Looney Tunes cartoons,” Steve said. “And astonishingly better than the stuff they were producing back in our day. This one’s circa 1953.”

Bucky watched the screen. A lady cat was dramatically weeping while her asshole husband told her to leave him alone, _he was busy_ , busy sleeping on the carpet that was, while she lamented over his disinterest in their having children. Then a drunk stork stopped by their front door, fortuitously, and delivered their little bundle of joy, an adorable baby… mouse. 

Bucky sort of watched all of this impassively, while the lady cat was won over by the mouse calling her mama, and how the male cat held out at first, and even attempted to make the mouse into a sandwich while his wife was out, until the mouse waved his hands at the jerk and called him _daddy_. 

Suddenly gushing over his newfound fatherhood, the cat proceeded to pack the mouse into a baby buggy, saying he was going _to take his wittle man out on a wittle walk_.

At that: Bucky cracked a smile. 

It was so stupid. 

It was both charming and kind of hilarious. 

Steve wasn’t even watching the cartoon anymore. 

He was watching Bucky’s face. 

After finishing the cartoon, Bucky got off the couch. Steve closed his computer and went into the kitchen. Bucky went to take a shower. 

Bucky came out afterwards, his hair wet and hanging around his face, and Steve had put out dinner onto two plates. He was looking at Bucky though, and he said, “I can’t take it anymore, you should put something on your lips before they crack and really start being a problem. I’ve got vaseline in the bathroom.”

When Steve produced the plastic container from the bathroom, Bucky smeared a little of the stuff on his mouth. 

Steve kept watching him, and Bucky could not read the expression. 

Then Steve shook his head and said, while closing the plastic container, “I was just thinking, earlier, of how we used to go to see the moving pictures, as kids. Back how they used to bill them, and the perfect escape for a bunch of kids growing up in the Depression, if only for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. Now you can watch pretty much anything that you want in the comfort of your own home. It’s… nuts.” 

Steve put the container back onto the bathroom counter, and Bucky said, “I’m not that kid you knew.”

Steve looked back at Bucky, and his smile was sad. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. I’m not the same kid I used to be either, if we’re going to flip that around, so it’s probably not fair for me to—Sorry. I just let myself talk and talk, and I shouldn’t have.” 

Steve started to reach out—and then he stopped himself, and just said, “Hey, but dinner’s getting cold. I wanted to give you a real meal, so hope it turned out okay.” 

Bucky didn’t move. 

“What do you want from me,” Bucky asked, point-blank. 

Steve looked pained. “Bucky…” 

“I’m not the man you once knew. What do you want from me?” Feeling suddenly, inexplicably, something that felt suspiciously like fear, Bucky looked away and at the ground. “What do you want me to be?”

“ _Nothing_ , Jesus, Bucky!” 

Steve put his hand to the bathroom doorframe, like suddenly this was too much. He pressed the knuckles of his left hand to his forehead, trying to pull something of himself together. 

“I mean,” he said at last, “What I’m trying to tell you…. Please, just, believe me when I say: once, a guy named Bucky Barnes looked out for me, without expecting anything back. If he could do that for me, than I can do that for you.” 

“So this is payment of a debt,” Bucky said, feeling a strange kind of emptiness settle into his chest. 

“No! God, no.” Steve breathed out, once and ragged, and then said, quietly, like someone in pain, “This is punishment for my own sense of pride, isn’t it? All those years, of acting like—” He broke off, making a wet, unhappy sound, and then there was silence. 

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. 

Then Steve looked at Bucky, “What I want. I want… to start over. I want to help you, because I care about you, and all I can say about that is there’s no explanation for it. Does that make even a little bit of sense? There’s no explanation for the fact that I care about you.” 

Bucky didn’t know. 

He worried at his lip a little as he thought, and he could taste the vaseline. 

Whenever he looked at Steve, there was this feeling in his chest he couldn’t explain. It nearly hurt. 

He couldn’t harm Steve.

He’d kill anyone who tried to harm Steve. 

He had been looking for answers, for something concrete to hold onto, and there were none to be had.

“Okay,” Bucky said. 

They were not physically touching each other, but somehow there was _something_ there. 

Steve finally just smiled his sad smile at Bucky, tilted his chin towards the kitchen, and said, “come on, I’m going to get some food in you if it’s the last thing I do,” and Bucky followed him to the table. 

They started over. 


	9. Interlude

These days, Bucky likes to wear his hair long.

Well, shoulder-length. 

When he goes out, he ties it back, but he’s gotten into the bad habit of using his hair like a curtain when its down. 

He doesn’t much look like the photographs in Steve’s albums. 

He likes it better this way. 

To the point: he doesn’t want Steve to get the wrong idea. Sometimes, Steve still seems to forget. 

But mostly, he remembers, and Bucky likes it better that way. 

\- -

Sam had suggested that Bucky try to slowly make a schedule for himself, so that he can start getting some structure back in his life. 

Bucky goes with Steve most days when Steve takes his morning run. He doesn’t always run with Steve, but he’s there. Sam has gotten more or less used to his presence.

Steve buys him a tablet, and he’s been spending a lot of time watching cartoons from the 50’s. He’s not sure why it’s a comfort, but it is. Possibly because there’s a degree to which he feels like he’s watching actual observations about actual people, without punches being pulled. The cartoons are funny, because people really are that terrible. The survivalist’s instinct is obvious. Bucky is still not used to people. Also: the cartoons are the perfect length. Six to eight minutes, and then Bucky can get up to give the perimeter of the apartment another once over, if he needs to. 

When he’s not watching videos on his tablet, Steve is teaching Bucky how to function in normal society. Things like how to use Steve’s debit card, or buying groceries instead of breaking in and stealing food, and how to use public transit and also elevators without freezing up, and doing laundry, and cooking. 

Hydra had wiped everything that Bucky had not needed to use as a weaponized human.

Fortunately, Bucky is a quick study. 

People, he may have trouble with, but everything else becomes practiced efficiency. 

He likes folding laundry.

He likes cutting vegetables into the perfect, symmetrical sizes. 

But such tasks are accomplished very quickly.

Bucky has a lot of time on his hands. 

He sits on the couch and watches Steve while Steve takes a call from Nicky Fury. 

“I’m going to have to leave for a few days,” Steve says, when the call is over. He does not look happy. 

Bucky just looks at him. “I can go with you,” he says, and Steve shakes his head immediately. 

“It’s too soon. Besides, I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to, to _negotiate terms_ with Fury. He’s a good man, as far as good goes, but also a paranoid bastard. I don’t want you being locked up.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. 

He is not quite reacclimatized to functioning as a solo agent, rather than dependent on others to accomplish mission objectives, but Bucky is a quick study. 

Steve leaves for his flight, and Bucky picks up his tablet, sliding his finger over the smooth screen. He helps himself to documents pulled from Steve’s private line, because he’d figured out how to synch up their personal tech. 

He wants to know exactly what Nick Fury is calling on Steve Rogers to do. 

One day Bucky will follow Steve back into the field, and it will be his choice and no one else’s.


	10. Chapter 10

Half the time, Bucky seemed to sleep on the floor. 

Steve had offered to buy a real bed, with a real mattress, but Bucky had looked at Steve like he was crazy, and told him point-blank that he wasn’t going to use it. 

Steve had sighed and then thought, well, he’d try again later. Bucky could change his mind, with time. It wasn’t like Steve didn’t know the feeling himself, of being unable to sleep in his own bed. 

Sometimes Bucky curled up on the couch.

Sometimes, Steve would hear Bucky cry out in his sleep, and when he came out to check, he’d find that Bucky had taken his pillow and sheets to the floor and he looked… Bucky was not a small man, but there was something about him that seemed so small, and vulnerable. 

Steve knew better than to try to touch Bucky on nights when he was having nightmares, but he’d watch him, and then call out his name if it looked like it was getting bad. Bucky would be up in a crouch in an instant, knife in hand, eyes wild. Then he’d remember where he was. 

Bucky didn’t always go back to sleep, on nights like that. Sometimes he climbed out the window, and would go up to the roof to be alone. 

Some mornings, Steve would come out to find that the sheets were folded up on the couch, the pillow placed on top, and Bucky would be gone. He’d come back, later, but Steve couldn’t ever seem to let go of that fear: that someday he might find Bucky gone, but it was really because Bucky had gone away for good. Or worse, that something terrible had happened, and he wouldn’t even… he’d have no idea of what had happened until it was too late. Hydra was still out there, after all. It wasn’t exactly like the world had suddenly become _safe_.

So he asked—begged really, he wasn’t ashamed and would do it again—that Bucky at least keep his phone on him. 

Bucky had just looked at him, something both blank and sad in his eyes.

But he did seem to keep his phone on him at all times, and he responded to texts when he’d been out for longer than usual without telling Steve first, and when Steve had begun to worry. 

_Everything okay?_ Steve would text. 

And Bucky would reply, almost immediately: _ok_

\- -

“I’m afraid I’m falling in love with him,” Steve said to Sam, one day. 

Steve had been going to VA meetings with Sam. 

It was one of those days. 

They had gone to lunch afterwards, and Steve was picking at his sandwich. 

“Hey,” Sam said, “I don’t know what it was like in your time, but I’ve got your back on this, and it’s okay to—”

“No,” Steve interrupted, before stopping himself to smile sort of self-effacingly, “I mean, that’s not what I meant. That’s not what’s bothering me.” 

Sam sort of looked at Steve over his sunglasses, and then said, “Well, all right. So what seems to be the problem, my friend.”

“I should have said: I don’t know if I’m falling in love with him.”

Now Sam was really looking at Steve like he wanted to figuratively shake him up a little, and Steve said, “It’s just. It’s not been the same as the way I’ve approached girls. It’s not like I want to take him on dates, or dancing, or buy him a cup of coffee, although I will buy him coffee, whatever he wants, I’ve been feeding him since he started living with me after all—and it’s not like I think of… uhh, well, of kissing him, or of…well, anything else. I’m not _against_ the ideas, it’s just. Not important.” Steve pushed away his sandwich. He wasn’t even really that hungry. “Last night, I looked at him and had the thought: I’d be happy if it was just me and him for the rest of our lives. I don’t even know what it means: having a thought like that. I don’t know what it says about me.”

“I hope that you are aware that the cornerstone of every happy relationship is not, as a matter of fact, _sex_ ,” Sam said. “Contrary to popularly accepted opinion.” Then he said, “Maybe you should try talking to Bucky himself. Just a thought.” 

“Bucky’s not ready for a load like that on his shoulders,” Steve said morosely. “He’s already got so much on his plate.”

“You’re probably right about that, somewhat,” Sam said. “But also, you’re an idiot.” 

“Jerk,” Steve retorted, before immediately regretting it, thinking about Bucky. 

He stuffed his uneaten sandwich back into its bag, to take home later, and watched the pigeons while Sam finished his salad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding: [salad](http://magickedteacup.tumblr.com/post/85706115909/sarriane-sam-wilson-laughing-alone-with-salad).


	11. Chapter 11

Bucky was sitting on the couch watching _Lilo and Stitch_ for the third time that week. 

He seemed to like the music. 

Steve had parked down with him and watched the second viewing of the aforementioned film on the flat screen. 

The film was really cute. 

Obviously, Steve had had first-hand experiences with aliens, and he’d read science fiction pulps and watched those kinds of films, back in the day—and this was probably the cutest depiction of human encounters with the alien that he’d ever seen. It was too cute to be believed. Pretty much everything in the film was drawn along the lines of stuffed animals—all flowing lines and round shapes, softened with vibrant colors and watercolor backgrounds. 

It was also, peculiarly, a very sad film. 

Steve wasn’t sure why Bucky kept watching it. Well, he understood when he saw Bucky smiling at the screen, or smirking at some particularly ridiculous joke. But then there were other parts of it that seemed to make some kind of sad blankness come over his face. 

On this third viewing, Bucky had just gotten to the part where Stitch trampled through a recreation of San Francisco built from Lilo’s bedroom items. After a moment of watching with him while standing, Steve sat down next to Bucky. He tried to keep at least a tiny distance between them. He still wasn’t sure about the lines of their personal-physical boundaries. Back in the old days, they had been all over each other’s physical spaces, but it had felt like a natural thing, almost inevitable with the way they lived in and out of each other’s pockets. 

And then Bucky chose that moment to, inexplicably, to lean over—well, half-fall over—so that he was suddenly lying with his head on Steve’s lap. He curled up so that he was lying on the couch with Steve’s lap for a pillow. 

Steve didn’t move. 

He didn’t barely dare to breathe. 

But Bucky didn’t move, and Steve finally allowed himself to relax underneath him.

\- - 

“Nick Fury probably wants me to be that,” Bucky whispered, later in the film. 

Steve looked down at Bucky. “Hmm?”

“You know.” He smirked, and it wasn’t exactly like the old Bucky Barnes, but it wasn’t unlike it either. “A _model citizen_. Have you, Captain Steve Rogers, reform me from weapon to model citizen. Or, at least a model citizen who is also a good weapon. ”

“Oh.” Steve looked back at the screen, where the character Cobra Bubbles, who had an uncanny resemblance to Nicky Fury himself, had just been mentioning that Stitch needed to become a model citizen. “I suppose I should start buying Elvis Presley records then. Also, you’re not a weapon, Bucky. I don’t think of you as that.” 

“He’s been sending people to watch me while you’re gone,” Bucky said. “It was Romanov, for a while, but lately other people.”

Steve frowned. “For God’s sake.”

Bucky shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me,” he said, but Steve could tell it did. 

“I’m going to have a word with him.”

“And say what,” Bucky asked. “That it’s perfectly safe to leave the weapon unattended. Why not invite Hydra to come pick me back up at their leisure. Reprogram me. Etc.” 

The longer Bucky talked, the more tense he seemed to become. Steve carefully moved his arm so that it could rest it on Bucky’s shoulder. He could feel both the human flesh and the metal of the arm under Bucky’s shirt sleeve. 

“That would be pretty stupid of Hydra,” Steve said quietly. “You’ve already proven that they can’t control you.”

“I don’t know,” Bucky said, and neither of them were watching the movie anymore. 

When Bucky tucked his face into Steve’s shirt, Steve turned off the film. 

They remained like that for a while, in the quiet, and Steve held Bucky, staying with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [(x)](http://magickedteacup.tumblr.com/post/85639571389/mechinaries-whatever-you-say-bucky)


	12. Chapter 12

“I’m surprised you haven’t called for Bucky to be locked up,” Steve said over the secure line. 

Nicky Fury had called about another overseas mission. Steve had taken the opportunity to air his discontent over Bucky’s being monitored.

“Now, Captain, let’s not be dramatic,” Fury said. He sounded like he would have been rolling his one good eye at Steve, had he been around in person. “If anything, I’d imagine that it’s you I should be reprimanding. I don’t know what you’ve been thinking, leaving Sgt. Barnes unattended in the way you’ve been, and I’m pretty sure _I’m_ the one who’s been doing you a favor by having someone keep lookout on him when you’re not.”

Fury went on, “As for locking anyone up—with the reports I’ve been given so far, let’s just say that I figured it was in our better interests to allow you to retain primary responsibility over Hydra’s former asset. Removing him from your supervision sounds to me like a terrible idea all around. Although I might as well mention: I’m sure you’ve realized by now that what you’re doing is technically illegal. By all accounts, if it were to surface that Sgt. Barnes was in hiding under your roof, there’d most certainly be a call from the government higher-ups to have him face criminal retribution for his involvement with Hydra. Nothing that I don’t think I won’t be able to clear through—as mentioned before, I’m pretty sure it’s in our best interests to pursue… rehabilitation in this case, rather than incarceration… but I just wanted to remind you, Captain, that you should be directing any _hurt feelings_ towards where it matters most. That understood, Captain Rogers?” 

“Yes, Sir,” Steve ground out. 

After Steve had hung up, Bucky said from the couch, “He wants you to recruit me for field work.” 

“And don’t I know it,” Steve said, glaring at his phone. “Over my dead body.” 

“Who said I didn’t want to go back?” Bucky asked quietly. 

Steve looked over to stare at Bucky. Bucky met his eyes levelly. 

“Do you really?” 

Bucky smiled, and the expression was like a knife. 

“Did you know that Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes was drafted?” Bucky asked. “He didn’t get involved with the war by choice. But he never complained, because he didn’t want you to think less of him. And when you finally came over to Europe to join him—well. Might as well keep following you until the end of the line.”

Steve did not know what to say. 

He hadn’t known about Buck’s draft notice. 

He hadn’t known. 

Bucky looked away first. “That was cruel of me. I don’t think James Barnes would have said anything. I’m sorry. I think there’s a part of me that’s still mad at you—not just for all of that, but because you’re still dragging me back into the fight. Every time you go out on a—well, you know. I keep thinking, you shouldn’t be out there without me. I should have your back. And I get so… angry.”

“Bucky,” Steve said softly. “Please. I don’t want you to go back to being a soldier on my account. I’m not worth that. Even Sam got out when he couldn’t do it anymore.”

Bucky wasn’t looking at Steve. He had curled up into himself like a child. 

Steve came round, and he realized: Bucky was crying. 

“Just last week, I thought to myself: I’d follow you. I’d follow you anywhere to keep you safe. Just last week. But now I’ve realized: I hate it. I hate being a weapon. I hate it so damn much I could fucking die. And don’t you dare touch me, Steve. Don’t you fucking touch me, I can’t—”

He was off the couch and out of the room before Steve could stand up. 

Steve stared at the open window. 

He felt like his heart was breaking.


	13. Chapter 13

This was how the Winter Soldier had survived: by never looking back, and never looking forward.

Bucky Barnes did not have that luxury. 

Not anymore. 

\- 

When Bucky came back down to the apartment, Steve was in his room. The light was on. He had been lying on his bed, on top of the covers, and staring at the ceiling. He sat up though, when Bucky stepped in the doorway. Bucky knew that it was probably obvious he’d been crying.

He said, before Steve could speak, “James Barnes most closely guarded secret was that he loved you. And now it’s mine.” 

Steve was looking at him now in a soft, sad way that he nearly couldn’t read. 

“I love you too, Bucky,” Steve said. His voice was rough. “And I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry that I was so stupid. I’m sorry for hurting you.”

Bucky might a small, dismissing noise. “You? Hydra hurt me. Everything that you’ve done… that’s something different. It’s my fault. I can’t stop you from being Captain America, and it’s stupid of me for getting so… upset about it.” He scrubbed at his face with his right hand. He felt awful. 

He whispered, “Can I stay with you tonight?” 

Steve pulled back the bed covers and sat on one side. 

When they lay down, Bucky tucked his face against Steve’s shirt, and Steve put one arm around him, holding him close. 

Bucky breathed in deep, and then closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [(x)](http://magickedteacup.tumblr.com/post/85882106909/werewarg-alwayslabellavita-werewarg)


	14. Chapter 14

“So you don’t want to go back to the field,” Steve asked Bucky the next morning, over scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. 

Steve had cooked breakfast. 

Bucky had tied back his hair, was leaning with both elbows on the table, and poking his fork through his eggs. 

Bucky shook his head. 

Then he said, “It’s complicated.” 

Steve just looked at Bucky from across the table, and said, “Don’t go back on my account, Bucky. Just don’t. I want you to be happy.”

“And I want you to be safe, punk,” Bucky said to his plate. 

Steve blinked. 

Punk was a term that the old Bucky would have used, less so the new one. 

He didn’t comment on it though.

“I’ve been doing this for a while,” Steve said, gently. “You know, functioning as a modern Captain America. For your given definition of modern. I think I was questioning whether I wanted to keep doing this, at one point—but now that Hydra’s resurfaced, I don’t think I can hang up the figurative shield. I don’t want to, to be honest. Not yet. It’s different for you. If you’ve never wanted any of this—I don’t want it for you either.”

Bucky took a purposeful, aggressive slurp from his coffee, and then shoveled in another forkful of eggs. 

Steve passed Bucky the ketchup bottle, and then scrubbed his other hand through his hair, trying to figure out how he wanted to approach this. 

Finally, he said, “I don’t want to come off as… well, I’m not trying to push anything on you, but I made a few phone calls this morning, while you were in the shower: to Maria Hill, former SHIELD agent and now employed in human resources at Stark Industries. To Ms. Potts, CEO of Stark Industries. I’ve, umm, noticed you tinkering with the tech lying around the apartment. I know you’re bored. Stark Industries is involved with a lot of work that does good in the world, and I thought. It could be a good option, if you’re ever looking for work, especially something different and interesting.” Steve shrugged, feeling a little helpless with it, especially given that Bucky’s face had gone unreadable. “Tony took over the line at one point. He said that even if you’re just looking for a job welding or something like that, and I quote, ‘by God, I will set him up for the welding job of his dreams.’” 

“Is that why you went out the front door when I came out looking for clothes?” Bucky asked. “So I wouldn’t overhear what was going on?”

Steve winced, but Bucky had let a sly kind of smile through, so Steve wasn’t feeling too mortified. 

“Umm, partly.”

“So supposing I do take up the job offer—I’m going to guess that I’ll have to move out.” 

“What? Well, I still need to figure out the logistics, but I thought—”

Bucky’s smile wasn’t even in the slightest bit happy now. 

“It’s gotten too uncomfortable here, hasn’t it?” Bucky said, interrupting Steve. “I hope you haven’t been trying to convince yourself that you’re in love with me back because you feel sorry for me, because that would be sad. That would just be awful, and I wouldn’t want any part of it.”

Steve frowned at Bucky, “Okay, now wait a minute—”

“Kiss me,” Bucky said, looking right at Steve. 

When Steve stared at Bucky, not moving immediately, Bucky said, “See, now there we—”

He broke off. 

Steve had come round and, indeed, kissed him. It was a soft kiss. Sweet, and nearly chaste. 

Steve pulled back after a moment. “I may not have much of a, well, of a sex drive I guess you’d call it, compared to other fellas, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” he said. “Even with Peggy—I was head over heels for her, but I was also pretty okay with being patient about waiting for marriage and all of that. I don’t know if you remember this, but there were jokes about Captain Chastity among the Commandos.”

“I’ve read about them,” Bucky said. He licked his lip, and then said, “I mean, about the jokes.” 

Steve felt his face fall a little as he realized, “I hope you’re not disappointed, this doesn’t mean I can’t, that I wouldn’t—”

“Shut up, you big lug,” Bucky said, and gave Steve another kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

“Anyway,” Steve said, once he’d sat back down again, and probably he was still blushing, he could feel the heat of it in his skin. “About Stark. You don’t have to. I mean, it’s just one option, we can look into other options too—”

“I’ll think about it,” Bucky said, and then bit into his second slice of toast.


	15. Chapter 15

They came for the Winter Solder on a Saturday. 

\- -

Steve was volunteering at a fundraising event for the VA hospital. 

He’d been mingling with the crowd, talking with kids from military families, taking pictures and shaking hands, and then telling everyone that half the credit was Sam Wilson’s too in the last venture of saving the world: Captain America’s air support and the guy who’d encouraged him to come out to the VA meetings in the first place. So there they were, swarmed by the small children, half of whom were dressed up as pint-sized superheroes, drinking lemonade and eating hot dogs, when Steve got a call. 

Steve excused himself, and then fished out his phone. He frowned at the unfamiliar number, before answering.

“Steve Rogers speaking.”

“Captain Rogers,” said the man on the other end. “This is Agent Tobias Ryan; I was sent by Fury to monitor Sgt. Barnes; Hydra has sent a team to extract Barnes from your apartment and has opened fire—”

“SAM,” Steve yelled, sprinting towards the parking lot. 

He waited just long enough for Sam to catch up, and then to shove his helmet at Sam—”My skull’s thicker than yours” followed by Sam’s tersely ironic “I won’t even say it”—before they were heading out fast on Steve’s motorbike. 

\- -

The policemen and paramedics had already arrived at the scene when Steve pulled up into the front street. 

One civilian, in the apartment next door, had been wounded. 

Agent Ryan had been wounded as well, although he insisted on speaking with Captain Rogers before the medics shipped him off to the nearest medical facility. 

There were fifteen dead. 

All of them were, presumably, Hydra agents. They had all been armed and dressed in body armor: five dead in the apartment, three in the front street, and the rest littering the alley going around behind. 

When Steve and Sam finally tracked Bucky down, it was three blocks from the scene of the attack. 

Bucky was crouched in the shadow of a dumpster, holding Steve’s shield. 

Fury had arranged for the shield to be fished out of the Potomac a few weeks earlier, before delivering it back to Steve, muttering something about “priceless vibranium military weapons.” Steve had even thought about bringing the shield with him to that day’s fundraising event. 

He thanked God that he’d left the shield at home with Bucky instead. 

“Bucky,” Steve said softly, but clearly, holding his hands up. 

At the sound of him, Bucky slowly lowered the shield, and then let it drop. His expression was blank. He was bleeding from at least three gunshot wounds.

While Sam called the nearest team of paramedics, Steve knelt down to face Bucky. Bucky was saying something quietly, nearly tonelessly, and Steve heard, “status report: no spinal injuries detected, no spinal stabilization needed; pulse, normal; breathing, unobstructed; three gunshot wounds to right shoulder, chest, right leg—”

“Oh, Bucky,” Steve whispered, when he realized. 

He took Bucky’s right hand and Bucky let him.

Steve knelt with Bucky until the paramedics arrived. 

\- -

There was something terribly blank about Bucky’s expression in the hospital. He didn’t look directly at anyone, except Steve, and then Sam, and everything else was shut out. He accepted treatment passively. 

When it was all over, they went to Sam’s place. Steve’s second apartment in D.C had become, yet again, a crime scene, and rendered unlivable. Even with Fury and Natasha doing an investigation of the incident, Steve figured that he and Bucky weren’t going back to living at that apartment. At Sam’s, Sam offered the bed up to Bucky, which made Steve give Sam an expression that was both pained and deeply grateful all at the same time—"Stop looking at me like that Steve, it’s giving me heart pains; worse than being stared at by wounded puppy; and at any rate, I know you would have done the same for me—”

So Bucky was tucked into Sam’s bed, and after Sam had gone out into the kitchen to scrounge up something to feed his guests—well, after all of that, Steve looked down at Bucky lying under the covers and he said, “Bucky, I’m sorry.” 

Bucky stirred, and then looked back up at Steve. For a moment, his expression seemed unfocused. 

But then he replied, his voice empty, “No. It’s not your fault. I was—I was unarmed. I took the kitchen knives, but that was insufficient. I was not wearing armor. I should not have been shot.” 

Steve felt like a cold, heavy weight was pushing into his chest. 

“It’s not your fault either,” Steve said with feeling. “It’s not your fault that Hydra came after you. Please, Bucky. Stay with me.” 

Bucky did not say anything. 

When Steve kissed him on the cheek, Bucky finally shuddered, turning his head towards the touch. 

Then he closed his eyes.

Steve watched Bucky until he’d fallen asleep, and then he went out to the kitchen.

\- -

“Thanks for helping us out like this,” Steve said, "It—I don’t know how I’m going to be able to make it up to you, always putting you in these situations.”

Sam didn’t say anything. He was squinting at a jar of spaghetti sauce. Possibly, he was trying to figure out if it was expired or not, because he was looking at the bottom of the jar like it was withholding secrets from him. 

Then he said, “How many times do I have to tell you we’re together on this, and shut up Steve.” He put the jar down and then unscrewed the lid. “ _We’re all in this together_ or something something, and you’re welcome.” 

Steve watched as Sam pulled out a pot, and then some boxes of mixed pasta. 

Sam poured water into the pot, and then set it on the stove to boil

Finally, “I don’t know what to do,” Steve blurted out. “Bucky can’t keep living like this. _I_ can’t keep living like this. I moved out here in the first place to be close to SHIELD’s Triskelion headquarters, but now that’s become a moot point.” Then, “You know, I was talking to Tony Stark last night. After SHIELD’s collapse, he had actually called _me_ to offer an apartment in Stark Tower. Something about how, if I ever felt like I needed a secure place to set up ‘home base’ as he put it, he wanted everyone from the old team, _the Avengers_ , to have that option. So after yesterday—Tony called again, just to remind me of the offer. And then he yelled something about ‘dummy, no’ and hung up. So.” 

“Yeah, I hear Stark is quite the charmer,” Sam remarked. “But. Okay, it doesn’t sound like the worse option out there. Stark’s offer, that is. I hear things about Stark, but you probably can’t get a lot more secure than Stark Tower.” 

“That tower is an eyesore.” 

“I thought we were talking security, not aesthetics.”

“I… fine, I know, I know.” Steve said, “Tony even pointed out that Bucky would be right there in Stark facilities, if he wanted to get involved with that. I, ah, didn’t tell you, but Bucky’s been spending his free time teaching himself how to hack into our secure servers with Fury. I told that to Tony, and he just… laughed. A lot. But on the other hand _I like it out here_. I’m not sure I’d want to move. But I want to do what’s best for Bucky, too. He’s never going to recover if Hydra keeps pulling him back like this.” 

“Okay, now wait a minute, who says you have to make that kind of decision right now?” Sam demanded. “Honestly, Steve. Take the week, if you need that long. Talk to Bucky about what he thinks. You kids can stay at my place in the meantime, it’ll be fun. Be nice to have the company.” 

Steve started to say something, mostly something about how he couldn't possibly put Sam out like this... and then he closed his mouth.

Then he shook his head, smiling ruefully. “You’re a good friend, Sam Wilson.”

“Of course I am,” Sam agreed. Then, “It’s all selfish you know—how many people can say that Captain America’s personally got their back.” 

“Welll,” Steve said, like a joke.

And Sam said, “Shhh, don’t ruin my moment.”

They spent the afternoon making pasta with tomato sauce and basil from the pot of it growing under the kitchen window and also leftover panchetta in the fridge 

It was pretty good pasta. 

Bucky ate all of it when Steve brought him a bowl, and Steve tried not to let it get to him, or to show that it got to him: the steady blankness with which Bucky ate. 

They'd get through this together.

Somehow: one way or another.


	16. Chapter 16

The next morning, Steve woke when Bucky sat up in bed first, leaning over to kiss Steve at his temple. 

Steve looked up at Bucky. 

Bucky said, “Maybe I should move to Manhattan, and you should stay here.” 

“What, no,” Steve said immediately. He sat up too and asked, “Bucky, why would you—” 

“Here, you have a routine. You have friends. You have support. I’m the anomaly. It’s my fault they came. Next time, I’ll be ready, and I don’t want that to intrude on your—”

“ _No, Bucky._ No. Bucky, don’t you understand? I’d give up everything for you. Stop saying things like that. We’ll work this out.” 

Bucky wasn’t looking directly at Steve when he said, “Like the way you were ready to let go of your own life, back on the helicarrier? Steve, I can’t keep doing this to you. It’s wrong of me to keep doing this to you.” 

“Just like it’s right of you to keep sacrificing yourself on my account,” Steve said, unable to keep the sarcasm and anger out of his voice. Not necessarily at Bucky. Just… this whole situation, and at himself. “Do you know who put you in this situation in the first place? Me. I did. Me and my stupid mouth. Me and my idiotic, naive idealism and wanting you there with me. After I thought you’d died, Peggy told me that I needed to respect and honor your choices—and I will, Bucky, God, I will if it’s what you really want, but I can’t just stand here and let you go like it’s nothing. Not when we have this chance to start over for good. Don’t do this to yourself, Bucky. Don’t do this to me.” 

Bucky was silent.

Then he tucked himself up against Steve, his cheek against Steve’s neck, and Steve gently put his arms around Bucky. 

Bucky said quietly, “Starting over, huh?” 

“Yeah,” Steve said. He ran his fingers through Buck’s hair, softly, and Bucky gave a little sigh in response. “Sam pointed out that we don’t need to decide anything right away, but yeah. Stark Tower is probably our most secure option, what with SHIELD being dissolved and Hydra still active. I just want to be sure that we have a secure home base. I mean, especially given that me and Sam will still be called out for work in the field and all of that, I want to feel okay about you being in your own bed at night.” 

Bucky sat back, now looking at Steve in an awake, thoughtful way. 

“Maybe we could spend a few days there first, to see,” Bucky said quietly. 

Steve thought about that. 

“...Huh.”

“Stark didn’t ask you to sign a lease up front or anything, did he?”

“No, I just—huh. That’s not a bad suggestion. You’re right. It’d be better to try it out first, it’s not like we need to make any huge commitments, or are strapped for money, or any of those kinds of reasons.”

Bucky was smiling in the dim light. “I was always the smart one, wasn’t I?” 

“Yeah. You were.” 

Then, after a moment, Steve added, “That tower really is an eyesore, I’m warning you up front. Actually, you’ve seen what it looks like. It’s worse in person.”

“I think I’ll be able to tolerate it,” Bucky remarked. “Or, was that a hint that I need to give Stark a hard time about his building when we get there?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” 

“Hmmm. And aren’t you going to miss your morning run if you don’t get up soon.”

“Five more minutes, Bucky, have pity on me.” 

They lay together like that, warm and quiet and at a curious peace—until Sam was knocking on the door, asking Steve if he was coming, he could hear that the two of them were awake in there, or were they too busy having some _grown-up bonding time._ okay, _bye Steve, I’ll see you in an hour_ after which Steve had yelled, _knock it off Sam, respect your elderly why dontcha, while Sam made a sound like a cackle from the other side._

It was a good morning. 


End file.
